


Gardening Leave

by Zauzat



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-20
Updated: 2012-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-29 20:21:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zauzat/pseuds/Zauzat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Lestrade character piece, post "The Reichenbach Fall". (Because I seem to have a thing for secondary characters.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gardening Leave

Lestrade stared unseeing at the laptop, the files, the piles of paperwork he'd surreptitiously taken with him before embarking on that wonderful euphemism, _gardening leave_.

It hadn't happened right away. If he hadn't been in such quiet shock over Sherlock's death and all the revelations of the famous detective's fakery, he'd have wondered why. Nothing could stop the internal investigation of course. Seven years worth of cases potentially tainted by Sherlock's intervention, now all being raked over by an internal investigations team. Of course he should have been suspended pending the outcome, an outcome that everyone within the force apparently thought inevitable.

The memory of Donovan's superior little smirk still grates on him. His only pleasure from that first week had been pointing out to her and Anderson that as he went down, so would all his underlings. No one would care that she'd eventually seen the truth, all they'd remember was that she was one of those Sherlock fools. He'd watched that little smirk change into a nervous grimace with detached satisfaction.

In retrospect, he's not proud of the fact that it took him over a week to realise that there could only be one reason he was still sitting behind his desk, if now restricted to filing duties. He'd called the other Holmes brother immediately. _Leave me alone_ , he'd said. _Do not try and protect me, we've all seen how well_ that _ends._

John had followed his last instructions from Sherlock. He'd assembled Molly and Mrs Hudson and Lestrade together in Mrs Hudson's flat, said he was only saying this once and they could all just bloody shut up and listen. He'd not even apologised to Mrs Hudson for the _bloody_ , just ploughed on relentlessly with saying his piece. He'd told them everything Sherlock had told him, the confession, the fakery, the last words. He'd told them everything else he knew too, the meeting with Richard Brook and the journalist, the conversation with Mycroft, the text about Mrs Hudson. He'd told them, fiercely, despairingly, that he didn't believe it. He couldn't believe it.

Lestrade had watched Mrs Hudson flutter and exclaim and declare that she just didn't know what to make of it all. He'd watched Molly, cheeks flaming pink, stare fixedly at the floor and refuse to meet anyone's eye, death having apparently done nothing to end her little crush. He'd watched John spit out his defiance, notably targeted at Lestrade, silently labelling him the Judas among their little group of disciples, the doubter, the betrayer. Even though he'd warned John the police were coming, hoping they'd find the flat empty when they arrived. Even though he'd made the arrest procedures as lax as he could and subsequent search as ineffective as possible.

He'd walked away from John with a polite nod, forced to accept the unvoiced charge just as he was forced to accept the investigation from his superiors. At least John knew for certain that his care for Sherlock had been reciprocated. Lestrade had taken out his anger on Mycroft, let his disdain show for anyone who risked the lives of those who provided information, let alone those who risked their family. And he'd been out of his desk within twenty-four hours, suspended on full pay pending the outcome of the internal investigation.

It didn't sound hard, that, full pay, no work, feet up at home. You had to be a copper to understand why it was so devastating. Even for those with a family, the force dominated their lives. For those without, the force was everything - colleagues, friends, reason for being. To be suspended was to be shunned, suspended in place without work or focus or purpose, without the grin of tired camaraderie, the eye roll of shared frustration, the acknowledgement that you too were one of us.

But Lestrade had known all along that it wouldn't last. Not that it would end well, he had no expectations of a happy outcome for himself, he was just collateral damage in the drama of the Holmes men and he knew it. But that the script was fundamentally flawed. He'd delayed his phone call to Mycroft long enough to get for himself copies of all the cases he knew were going to be reviewed. He'd filled the long, silent hours in his flat going through them in meticulous detail. He'd proved to himself what he'd believed all along - it simply wasn't possible for Sherlock to be a fake.

Yes, there were those few exceptional examples where lack of evidence meant that Sherlock's conclusions were never put to the test, the Baskerville thing, the diplomat's children. One might be able to argue that Sherlock has concocted those, although it couldn't be proved either way. But there were far more cases where Sherlock had provided the brilliant insight and Lestrade and his people had then done the legwork.

Lestrade might not have Sherlock's brilliance but that didn't mean that he was a crap copper. He was a good detective, very good, and he knew it. Slower than Sherlock perhaps, lacking that gift for illogical insight, but utterly meticulous once he had the scent. Sherlock's little revelations weren't evidence. They couldn't be put before a judge. And putting Sherlock before a judge was clearly lunacy, Lestrade could have told anyone that, had they bothered to ask him.

Indeed many times Sherlock's methods had made the evidence he produced inadmissible in court, so Lestrade had had to find other ways to prove the point. And he had proved it. Every one of his cases was watertight, once people got past the drama of Sherlock's name and started sifting through the actual evidence. He had watched the revelation slowly play out, from the early days where he was called in without notice for yet another interminable interrogation, treated like a criminal, forced to beg for a break, a cup of tea, a visit to the loo.

His saving grace perhaps was that the Met had taken the revelations so seriously, had put all their top investigators on the internal inquiry. The Met had its share of fools and time-wasters, but it had its own brilliant minds too. And the investigators had come down hard on him. Coppers hated failure and corruption among their own. Every single one of them had been tempted at one time or another. Those who had resisted hated those who'd taken the easy way and given in. Those who had fallen fought even harder never to be uncovered. They'd gone after him and his cases with all the ferocity of pit bull terriers, jaws clamped down on the carcass of his career, never to let go again.

But the fact that they were the best meant that it didn't take long for them to see the strength of the evidence Lestrade had so painstakingly collected to support Sherlock's insights. The interrogations became discussions, the venue switched to more comfortable offices, the cup of tea was waiting for him on the table when he arrived. Lestrade watched with cynical amusement as it became clear the Met didn't know what to do next.

To stop an avalanche of demands for retrials, Sherlock's reputation would need to be resuscitated. Lestrade would have to be reinstated. An actual investigation into the character of Richard Brook cum Jim Moriarty and the circumstances of the Brook/Moriarty death and Sherlock's suicide would have to be undertaken. He took a savage pleasure in the way Donovan's eyes no longer met his when they passed in the corridor.

As he sat at home amid his piles of casework and waited for the Met to decide what to do next, he wondered. Wondered why Sherlock had chosen death with dishonour. Wondered where John had gone since he'd upped and left London. Wondered if John and Sherlock were sharing a laugh on the other side of the globe, not caring that there were people other than John who'd been bitterly hurt by it all.

On impulse he picked up his phone and texted:

 **Have you heard from him?**

The quick reply told him that John, like him, was still surgically attached to his phone, still addicted to the text signed SH that suddenly make the day more complicated, more exciting, burning that much brighter.

 **No.**

Another text came in shortly thereafter.

 **You actually think that....**

Lestrade stared at it for a long time, trying to work out what he did think. At last he sent his reply.

 **Yes. I do.**


End file.
